Banksy’s “Save or Delete Jungle Book” (above) goes up for auction in London today. The poster was created for a deforestation campaign but never used.

“The Catcher in the Rye”was adapted into a movie a few years ago? Yes, but it doesn’t ruin how you imagine Holden Caulfield’s adventure. It’s just 75 minutes of blue screen. The trailer will give you the idea.

Clearly, Avatar was more of a right-place, right-time release from a giant name with absolutely invincible Hollywood momentum behind it, while Tron was widely viewed as a nice-looking but unrevolutionary special effects-driven Disney remake. I personally enjoyed Tron far more, and while I can completely accept that not everyone else did, I’m still absolutely bowled over by how completely differently these two “awesome-looking, questionable plot” films were received by the masses. Is it acceptable to say “This film looked great and I loved it, even though the story was kind of dumb,” or isn’t it? And how did this standard completely reverse itself in the span of a year? Or was Avatar really that great and Tron really that poor and I’m completely and utterly off-base?

Anomalous Material’s ‘7 Actors Better Off As Second Fiddle’ celebrates actors like Zach Galifianakis, Cillian Murphy and Ed Harris as being better in supporting roles than leads. From the section on John C. Reilly:

John C. Reilly can be an extraordinarily funny complementary piece. While Reilly has played lead roles competently in movies such as Cirque Du Freak and Walk Hard, those two movies were massive box office flops that demonstrated that he simply doesn’t have the star power required to highlight a movie.

Though neither of these were blockbusters, I’d offer “Hard Eight” and “Cyrus” as proof Reilly can hold his own in the lead slot.

From Buster Keaton and Fatty Arbuckle’s “The Garage” to whores like Adam Sandler and Michael Bay, FilmDrunk presents a history of product placement in movies. Just disregard all the misspellings.

Speaking of product placement movies, I’d gladly see a full-length adaptation of “The Chase Film,” which is an Intel commercial that shows the power of its latest processor via a multimedia action sequence set across windows, programs and websites visible on a PC screen. It’s kind of like a cross between “Salt” and “TRON” and easily better than both. The video, via /Film:

In honor of Bernard Herrmann’s 100th birthday occurring this year, Adrian’s Film Music Blog is celebrating his scores. First up: “Vertigo.” ” “As you can see from the piano reduction of the score, Herrmann uses diminished arpeggios in an ostinato pattern to create the spiralling idea and the menacing brass cuts in underneath with a simple two note pattern.”

Al Pacino has played more great New York characters than anyone: Michael Corleone, Serpico, Carlito, the mayor, Satan as a corporate lawyer. Yet he has never been more soulful than as Sonny, depressive and manic, turned on by performing for cheering crowds and crushed by their abandonment, trying to reconcile what cannot be reconciled. He is New York’s most haunted mascot in its most haunting film.

Pajiba’s Dustin Rowles spoils the shocking ending of “Country Strong” in his review, which is apparently fine if the movie is as bad as he says. He bit the bullet for us:

Take all the preconceptions you have about how bad Gwyneth Paltrow’s Country Strong is and multiply them by 6. Now divide them by 4, multiply them by π, add 100, subtract 2 and divide by 4. Now, write that number down on a piece of glossy resume paper. Take that piece of paper, lift it up to your lips, and slice it deeply into the corners of your mouth. Now, take a bottle of Tabasco sauce and break it open by smashing it into your jaw. Afterwards, gnaw your arm off at the elbow with the jagged remains of your teeth.

How bad did that hurt?

That’s how bad Country Strong is.

Remember the awful faux documentary “Death of a President” (or, “DoaP”)? If Bush had been assassinated, it would surely be getting the same response as Palin’s crosshairs. John Nolte at Big Hollywood references the film:

I look forward to pinning the next white collar office massacre on [Jeff] Wells and [“Hobo with a Shotgun”] and an industry that for ten long years has almost uniformly been the most hostile, vitriolic, anti-government force on the planet; spending hundreds of millions of dollars to paint an American president as a war criminal who stole an election, our CIA as a force of evil , and our troops as dehumanized monsters. […] Never forget that this is the same industry that created the 2006 “mockumentary,” “Death of a President,” a film released throughout the world, into 143 domestic theatres, celebrated with an award at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival, and which depicted — onscreen, with the use of CGI — the assassination of President George W. Bush … all to the cheers of Rober Ebert’s website.